Method for extracting honey

ABSTRACT

Honey is removed from the honeycomb by blowing a small jet of air into the cells of the honeycomb, thus blowing the honey therefrom.

United States Patent [451 June 27, 1972 Bell [54] METHOD FOR EXTRACTINGHONEY [72] Inventor: William Roland Bell, 804 25th Street,

Snyder, Tex. 79549 [22] Filed: July 15, 1970 [21] Appl. No.: 55,108

Related 0.8. Application Data [60] Division of Ser. No. 794,059, Jan.27, 1969, Pat. No. 3,535,721, Continuation-impart of Ser. No. 621,397,March 2, I967, abandoned.

m us. ..6/l2A [51 lnt.Cl. ....A0lk 59/02 [58] Field of Search ..6/l2, 12A [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 900,643 10/1908 Avant..6/l2 R AIR COMPRESSOR CATCH ER CONDENSATION FOREIGN PATENTS ORAPPLICATIONS 965,968 2/1950 France ..6/I2

Primary Examinerl.ucie I-l. Laudenslager Attorney-Charles W. Coffee 5 7]ABSTRACT Honey is removed from the honeycomb by blowing a small jet ofair into the cells of the honeycomb, thus blowing the honey therefrom.

8 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures TEMPERATU RE RBSULATOR PRESSURE REGULATORBUCKET PATEMTEDJUW 19. 2

' sum 1 or 2 TEMPERATU RE R EGULATOR -|6 PRESSURE REGULATOR f l4CONDENSATION CATCH ER AIR COMPRESSOR FIG Z INVENTOR:

WILLIAM ROLAND BELL,JR

PATENTEDJUHZ? 19. 2 3,671,985

sum 2 BF 2 INVENTOR.

WILLIAM ROLAND BELL, JR

METHOD FOR EXTRACTING HONEY I CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONSThis application is a division of my patent application Ser. No.794,059, filed Jan. 27, 1969, now U. S. Pat. No. 3,535,721, which was acontinuation-in-part of my patent application Ser. No. 621,397, filedMar. 2, 1967, entitled AU- TOMATIC HONEYCOMB EMP'I'YING MACHINE, now

abandoned.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION:

1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to beekeeping and moreparticularly to the extraction of honey from its comb.

2. Description of the Prior Art Extraction of honey from the honeycombhas posed a problem for beekeepers for sometime.

The removal of honey from the honeycomb presents a particular problem.The honey is a thick viscus liquid-within hexagonal cells, each of thehexagonal cells being about 0.2 inch wide measured across the flats.However, when the comb has been uncapped and the honey in the cellsundisturbed, the honey will not normally flow by gravity.

Commercially most honey is extracted by uncapping the honeycomb with aknife, then placing the honeycomb in a centrifuge and removing the honeyby centrifugal force.

Other workers in the field have proposed other extraction methods, e.g.,Avant, U. S. Pat. No. 890,397, issued June 9,

1908, suggests using a suction pump to suck the honey from the comb;however, by his method, first it was necessary to uncap the cells.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to my invention, by flowing the honeyfrom the honeycomb with a jet of air, the jet of air itself removes thecaps from the cells of the honeycomb.

Although a single jet of air resulting from a single noule could be usedto blow the honey from each of the cells, this is obviously notcommercially feasible due to its time consumption. Therefore, accordingto my invention, I use a header having a plurality of nozzles. Inasmuchas the standard honeycomb is 10 inches wide, I find that a header 10inches long with 48 nozzles is quite satisfactory. Obviously the 48nozzles would indicate that there is a nozzle aligned approximately witheach course of cells across the honeycomb. The honeycomb is soremarkable in its symmetry, generally individual cells are very uniformin size and therefore, the nozzles can be spaced uniformly.

It is not necessary to align the jet of air with the cell inasmuch asthe air is more efficient in removing the honey from the cell if itenters the cell from one side. This jet of air has a dimension smallerthan the dimension of a cell. The jet of air enters one side of a celland pushes the honey out the other side.

I have found that sometimes the air pressure ruptures the bottom of acell to a next adjacent cell. I have not found this to be particularlydisadvantageous inasmuch as good removal is obtained and, also, when thecomb is returned to the hive, there appears to be no loss in theproduction time of the honey due to the easy repair of the ruptured cellby the colony.

Specifically, I have found that air at 12 psig and 90 F. temperature inthe air equalization chamber or header and discharged therefrom by holes0.0159 inch in diameter (26 wire gauge) drilled through the chamber withthe header spaced three-sixteenths of an inch from the comb issatisfactory. Although I would actually prefer to have the air nozzlecloser to the comb, the physical construction of the frames in which thecomb is located limits this desire.

An object of this invention is to remove honey from honeycomb.

Further objects are to achieve the above with a device that is sturdy,compact, durable, simple, safe, versatile, lightweight, ellicient, andreliable, yet inexpensive and easy to manufacture, install, operate, andmaintain.

Still further objects are to achieve the above with a method that issafe, rapid, versatile, efficient and inexpensive and does not requireskilled people to install, adjust, operate andmaintain.

The specific nature of the invention, as well as other objects, uses,and advantages thereof, will clearly appear from the followingdescription and from the accompanying drawing, the difierent views ofwhich are not necessarily to the same scale.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a schematic representation ofan embodiment of this invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken substantially on line 2-2 of FIG. 1showing the air nozzles;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken substantially on line 3-3 of FIGS. 1and 2 with parts removed for clarity showing details of construction;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken substantially on line 4-4 of FIG. 2schematically showing the jets of air as a structural element;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken'substantially on line 5-5 of FIG. 4showing the removal of thehoney from the comb.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED ENIBODIMENT Referring moreparticularly to FIG. 1, it may be seen that air compressor 10 is asource of air under pressure for extractor 12. From the compressor, theair is dried by suitable condensate catcher 14 as is known in the art ofair compression. Thereafier, the pressure is regulated by pressureregulator 16 such as is known and is commercially available on themarket and, likewise, the temperature is regulated to F. by regulator18, such conventional equipment being commercially available on themarket. Air compressor 10, condensation catcher l4, pressure regulator16 and temperature regulator 18 could all be thought of as a single unitwhich viewed from the extractor 12 is a source of air under a regulatedpressure at a regulated temperature.

The honey combs are built upon standard wooden frames 20 as well knownto the beekeeping art. The frame is basically a rectangular structuremade of wood and honeycomb foundation 22 is attached to the centerthereof. The foundation 22 is a panel-like member attached to the frameand it is upon this foundation 22 that the bees build the honeycomb 24which consists of the hexagonal cells.

An enclosure is formed with the funnel shaped floor 26 and side supports28. Bottom guide rail 30 is attached to the bottom immediately above thefloor 26. vThe rail 30 is channel shaped and the width between theflanges is suchas to conveniently fit the width of the frame 20. Theupper guide rail 32 is likewise channel shaped so the frame convenientlyfits therein. Also it may be seen in FIG. 1 that bottom guide railextends for a greater distance than the upper guide rail and therefore,a frame can be conveniently placed on the bottom guide rail and insertedinto the upper guide rail and pushed through the extractor 12. Also itmay be seen that when the frame 20 is in the guide rail, the frame isaligned with the guide rails 30 and 32.

The extractor has rubber flaps on doors 34 which extend on either sideof the side-wall supports 28. Generally, the flaps or doors 34 willextend outward because of the air blowing within the extractor 12.

Adjacent where the honeycomb first enters the extractor is a pair offilament wires 36, which is well known to the art. The purpose of thesefilament wires is to trim any burr comb which may be projecting from thehoneycomb and also to remove other comb which might project.

The filament wires are parallel to the foundation 22 and verticallyoriented. Immediately adjacent to the filament wires to blow against thecomb are headers or equalization chambers 38. The chambers are tubularwith their axes parallel to the filament wires and thus to thefoundation. Expressed otherwise, the nozzles 40 along one side of thechamber 38 will be equally spaced from the honeycomb. The equalizationchambers have nipple 42 which extends outside support walls 28 and isconnected by suitable conduit to the source of air under pressure.

As stated before the nozzles 40 are located as close to the honeycomb aspractical considering clearance of side of the frame 20. l have foundthat about three-sixteenths of an inch is as close as is practical toplace the nozzles 40 to the honeycomb. I have had good success spacingthe nozzles 0.20 inches on center and making them the size of 26 wiregauge (0.0l95 inch diameter) being supplied with 12 psig of air producesa suitable jet which, at this spacing, will blow into each cell of thehoneycomb as the honeycomb is pushed manually slowly through theextractor to blow the honey from each cell. 1 have found that if thecells are capped, the velocity of the air will readily uncap the cellsand there is no particular damage done to the honeycomb and if some ofthe cells do blow out, there is no excessive damage. Any damage isreadily repaired by the bees. Also as stated above, often as the honeyis blown from the comb, some of it may accumulate along the edges;however, 1 have found that it will be blown or trickle off the surfaceof the honeycomb rather than re-entering the cells.

It will be understood that the purpose of the embodiment described is toplace air nozzles adjacent to the honeycomb. Therefore, the structurecan take many different forms and it is within my concept that abifurcated equalization chamber could be used somewhat resembling atunning fork and held by the hand and passed over the honeycomb in situ.

The embodiment shown and described above is only exemplary. I do notclaim to have invented all the parts, elements or steps described.Various modifications can be made in the construction, material,arrangement, and operation and still be within the scope of myinvention. The limits of the invention and the bounds of the patentprotection are measured by and defined in the following claims. Therestrictive description and drawing of the specific example above do notpoint out what an infringement of this patent would be, but are toenable the reader to make and use the invention.

I claim as my invention:

1. The method of removing honey from a honeycomb comprising:

a. directing a jet of air against the honeycomb from outside of thecomb, b. the dimension across the air jet being less than the dimensionacross a cell in the honeycomb, c. traversing the surface of thehoneycomb by the jet, and d. removing the caps of the comb by the jet.2. The invention as defined in claim 1 with the additional limitationsof d. directing a plurality of jets against the side of the honeycomb,e. the distance between the jets about equal to the dimension acrossflats of each of the cells of the honeycomb. 3. The invention as definedin claim 1 with the additional limitation of d. regulating thetemperature of the air before jetting it against the honeycomb. 4. Theinvention as defined in claim 3 with the additional limitations of e.directing a plurality of jets against the side of the honeycomb, f. thedistance between the jets about equal to the dimension across flats ofeach of the cells of the honeycomb. 5. The invention as defined in claim1 with the additional limitation of d. drying the air before jetting itagainst the honeycomb. 6. The invention as defined in claim 5 with theadditional limitation of e. regulating the temperature of the air beforejetting it against the honeycomb. 7. The invention as defined in claim 5with the additional limitations of e. directing a plurality of jetsagainst the side of the honeycomb, f. the distance between the jetsabout equal to the dimension across flats of each of the cells of thehoneycomb. 8. The invention as defined in claim 7 with the additionallimitation of g. regulating the temperature of the air before jetting itagainst the honeycomb.

I. l i t

1. The method of removing honey from a honeycomb comprising: a.directing a jet of air against the honeycomb from outside of the comb,b. the dimension across the air jet being less than the dimension acrossa cell in the honeycomb, c. traversing the surface of the honeycomb bythe jet, and d. removing the caps of the comb by the jet.
 2. Theinvention as defined in claim 1 with the additional limitations of d.directing a plurality of jets against the side of the honeycomb, e. thedistance between the jets about equal to the dimension across flats ofeach of the cells of the honeycomb.
 3. The invention as defined in claim1 with the additional limitation of d. regulating the temperature of theair before jetting it against the honeycomb.
 4. The invention as definedin claim 3 with the additional limitations of e. directing a pluralityof jets against the side of the honeycomb, f. the distance between thejets about equal to the dimension across flats of each of the cells ofthe honeycomb.
 5. The invention as defined in claim 1 with theadditional limitation of d. drying the air before jetting it against thehoneycomb.
 6. The invention as defined in claim 5 with the additionallimitation of e. regulating the temperature of the air before jEtting itagainst the honeycomb.
 7. The invention as defined in claim 5 with theadditional limitations of e. directing a plurality of jets against theside of the honeycomb, f. the distance between the jets about equal tothe dimension across flats of each of the cells of the honeycomb.
 8. Theinvention as defined in claim 7 with the additional limitation of g.regulating the temperature of the air before jetting it against thehoneycomb.